This is a zine dedicated to death/thrash, technical and traditional death metal for more info contact hatredmeanswar@yahoo.com looking for new authors do to lack of time to cover everything email me at the email listed above if you want to do reviews and interviews for the blog.

Monday, February 27, 2017

Ignea Interview

1.Can you give us an update on what has been going on with the band since the recording and release of the new album?

First of all, we sent the pre-orders :) Album release, especially if it’s first release in the life of band, is very thrilling and nervous, so first few days we just watched the response. Now we are getting ready for some shows and rehearsing the new material.

2.Recently you have released a new album, how would you describe the musical sound that is presented on the recording?

Overall it is just modern metal sound. Although metal music is really an old thing now, it still evolves, and using some ‘start-of-the-art’ sound techniques is what we really feel like more than providing your ears with just a sole downtuned aggressive palm-muted chunky chuggage :D Punchy drum grooves on a basic kit, heavily distorted bass, gainy guitars, synths, sequencers — all are here, but you still can hear lots of folk instruments, that are almost impossible to hear in modern metal.

3.Some of your lyrics cover science fiction, religions and politics, can you tell us a little bit more about your interest in these topics?

Well, you might call them just generic metal lyrics, haha! Basically, we just sing about things we have something to say about, so all our lyrics are not empty wordsets, and we are really proud of them.

4.What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name ‘Ignea'?

Ignea is feminine of ‘fiery’ or ‘in flames’ in latin. Fiery is one of the epithets all bands would love to hear about them, and we just say ourselves that we really burn it, don’t we?

5.What are some of the best shows that the band has played so far and also how would you describe your stage performance?

Well, there are not a lot of things to talk about here, as we play live really infrequently. This is our own decision: first, we don’t want to bore people with ourselves, so we have a rule not to play a show more than once a year in one city; second, we really care about our sound, so we have a consistent rider which can’t be provided in lots of Ukrainian venues. As for ourselves… we nail the material for sure, but we still have to learn a lot I think. At least I’m not shy to say so.

6.Do you have any touring or show plans for the future?

Sure, we plan to do a bunch of shows in Ukraine, then play on some few summer festivals, and we also work on some European dates, but we can’t say anything about them yet.

7.On the album you had also done a cover of Ultra Sheriff's "Leviathan', what was the decision behind doing your own version of this song?

It’s a funny story, actually. This concept born precisely on the day we got our cat Leviathan (you could see him in the end of guitar playthrough of Halves Rupture). I just wanted to post his cute photo on my VK.com page with any song called Leviathan, so I just stumbled upon this one and thought about how it would sound with metal arrangement. Now we all know!

8.On a worldwide level how has the feedback been to your music by fans of extreme metal?

It is absolutely stunning! We are a small band somewhere on outskirts of Europe, and we are really amazed about people getting to know us from all those distant places.

9.Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?

We don’t have a lantern to light our path. We don’t owe anything to anyone musically, and we are absolutely free to do what we feel like. If we’ll want to have a song with ukrainian lyrics — we’ll do it, if we’ll want to cover Snoop Dogg — we’ll do it, if we’ll ever feel like doing a drone ambient album — we’ll do it for sure.

10.What are some of the bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?

We all listen to different things and use all those elements in our music if they really fit. I personally listen everything from turkish pop and ukrainian underground techno scene to things like contemporary prog rock from southern UK (BlackPeaks, Toska, Heck, Arcane Roots, all that stuff). Helle really loves a lot of pop singers, Dmitri listens to classical music and some really aggressive metal things, Ivan is a metalcore fan, Xander loves, well… he’s a bass player, OK. The most funny point of it is that we are absolutely not influenced by any of the bands people love to compare us to in youtube comments. Nope, neither Lacuna Coil, nor Epica, nor Nightwish. We listen to them a bit, but nah.

11.What are some of your non musical interests?

I’m a big fan of sustainable transportation and green electricity, I also love to cook, Xander is a gamer and LARP player, Helle’s into marketing and stunning-looking outfits (usually they are on Pinterest only), she also watches tons of weird movies I don’t understand, Dmitri is actually a professional classical pianist and organist, Ivan is a party man. We all are completely different, and I think this is a key to writing interesting music.

12.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?

We are very open people, and we’d love to know people from all over the world, and playing in a band is a big opportunity for us. We are not signed to a label (and we don’t want to be), so the best promotion we have are you people. Just share something with other guys, show us to your friends, and make us happier with our ever-growing listeners family, and we’ll make you happier with more good music and emotions in return. See you on the road, hopefully!